Black Sand and Clay Birds
by ncfan
Summary: -Kurotsuchi, Deidara- He always hides in her room.


**Characters**: Kurotsuchi, Deidara, Han (in spirit)**  
Summary**: He always hides in her room.**  
Pairings**: None**  
Author's Note**: Even though, in chapter 415 Kurotsuchi's father has been identified as a man named Kitsuchi, I still cherish the thought that her father was actually Han (one of the Iwa jinchuuriki) since they have the same eye color and I like crack-brained theories like this. Therefore I propose that Kitsuchi is her uncle or something (he could be the Tsuchikage's son; they have the same nose) and that she was just raised by him is all. For this and other reasons that you will see as you read, this oneshot is slightly AU. And as for why Kurotsuchi seems to have the same kekkei genkai (Yōton—Lava—release) as the Mizukage, well, that's not relevant, but let's just say that I have theories about _that_ too.**  
Disclaimer**: I don't own Naruto.

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The child who was raised first by her paternal uncle, then by her maternal one and calls the latter "Dad" because it's easier on her own heart sometimes wonders about her father.

Kurotsuchi's never laid eyes on Han. He left long before she could remember him, and he's never come back; Onoki always says that it's in the nature of a jinchuuriki to wander. His letters are kept by her paternal uncle Masaru and the only way she's ever known him is through the small gifts he occasionally sends her.

A pale pink conch from Mizu no Kuni; an Evil Eye pendant and a blue sculpture of a cat in blown glass from Kaze no Kuni.

Today, Kurotsuchi lies on her back on her bed and holds a small, clear glass vial of black powder over her head, narrowing pale lavender eyes as she stares at it and, strangely listless, tries to figure out what it is.

That's when the door to her room flies open.

Kurotsuchi sits straight up in bed. "What—"

Glaring fiercely at her with slate blue eyes, Deidara smacks a bandaged hand over her mouth as he listens intently, eyes fixed on the door to Kurotsuchi's room in the Tsuchikage's compound. After a second, he relaxes and flings himself onto her bed to draw the blinds on the window shut. The slants of light being all that's left, the room with its plain brown walls (Kurotsuchi's grandfather is a big believer in austerity) is much more dimly lit; she leans over to turn on the lamp.

"Deidara-nii, what are you doing?" Kurotsuchi frowns at him, pulling her legs so she's sitting cross-legged on the bed, watching as he locks the door with feverish speed.

"I told you not to call me that!" he snaps. "I'm your cousin, not your brother."

Kurotsuchi sticks her tongue out at him and he rolls his eyes as, more calmly, he sits down near the foot of the bed, across from her. "Whatever. I'm hiding from Sensei, un. The crazy old man's gone completely off his rocker!"

If Kurotsuchi is at all offended that Deidara's just called her grandfather a crazy old man, she doesn't show it; in fact, she agrees with him. The Tsuchikage _is_ nuts. "What did you do _this_ time?"

Deidara shrugs tensely, getting a distinctively shifty look in his eyes. "I didn't do anything." He's staring at the wall, the floor, anywhere but into her eyes. "I just suggested that maybe, just _maybe_, art has some redeeming qualities, and he went completely ballistic."

Kurotsuchi is tempted to roll her eyes at him. Knowing Deidara, he probably did a bit more than just "suggest" that art has redeeming qualities.

Deidara frowns slightly at her, slanted eyes narrowing. At eleven, he has three years on her though the age gap has always felt smaller than that, no matter how much he tries to emphasize it. And though they are (as he insists vehemently) cousins and not siblings, they do look very much alike; their faces are mirror images of each other, the only difference being Kurotsuchi's black hair and lavender eyes to Deidara's blond hair and blue eyes.

"What's up with you?" he asks, trying to sound unconcerned and not quite succeeding.

She shrugs, shooting her eyes at him slightly coyly. "Well, my teacher at the academy sent me home with this assignment—" she pulls a paper out from the folder she has on the bed "—and I'm having issues with some of the questions."

Deidara holds out a hand swathed in bandages to hide the grinning mouths (Some freakish genetic mutation caused by the cursed seal in the Iwa's ANBU tattoo; his father was a member). "Give it here."

Kurotsuchi restrains a triumphant smile.

Brow furrowing, Deidara looks it over and points something out. "Well, here's where you went wrong. Earth release is negated by _Lightning_ release, not Water." Deidara, having been the top of his class the year he graduated, would know these things.

"Oh."

"I know it sounds weird, un, since soil and rock's non-conductive and all, but there you have it. Anything else?"

She nods, and holds out the small vial. "Tousan sent this." The smile's off her face. "I don't know what it is."

Seeing her moody expression Deidara pulls a sour face. "Jisan needs to come home," he mutters, before holding it up to the light.

Then, suddenly, he laughs. "It's black sand," he tells his cousin, smiling an odd, genuine smile, something all too rare on his face these days. "Jisan probably got it from a volcanic island somewhere."

Deidara gives Kurotsuchi back the vial and she puts it on the nightstand by the bed.

A few seconds of silence pass in which Deidara starts to listen again, no doubt for the sound of people looking for him; Kurotsuchi tries not to giggle at how nervous he is. Then, after about a minute he meets her eyes, strangely sheepish. "I've got something for you."

Rifling in his pocket, he pulls out a small clay sculpture, looks down at it in frustration, then starts smoothing over some areas with his thumb, balancing his tongue between his teeth before handing it out to her. It's a clay bird. "Here." Deidara's pale face darkens. "I heard the old man made you get rid of the first one I made for you; you'll have to hide it. It won't explode, I swear."

Kurotsuchi smiles as she accepts it—"Thanks, niisan," and he doesn't notice that she calls him that this time—and thinks that Onoki must regret the day he ever apprenticed Deidara part-time to the member of the ANBU who taught him how to utilize clay as a weapon, especially since Deidara took so well to the lessons.

Muffled shouting makes Deidara pale. He dives under Kurotsuchi's bed, much to her amusement. "They'll find you if you stay here, you know."

"And what makes you think that, un?"

"Because you _always_ hide here, niisan."

Deidara pops out from under the bed. "You got a point, Kurotsuchi." He smiles slightly. "Well, I'd best be leaving." Hopping up onto her bed again, he rolls the flimsy mini blinds away from the window and undoes the latch at the middle, opening the two panes, before putting his foot on the sill.

"I'll be seeing you, cousin," is the last thing she hears him saying before he disappears into the heavily overcast afternoon.

When the Tsuchikage and Kitsuchi burst into her room, they are met with the sight of an eight-year-old girl reading a book, who points to the open window and murmurs, "He went _that_ way."

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The thing with Deidara's hand mouths being a genetic mutation and his utilization of clay as weapons harkens back to an earlier drabble fic of mine, _Life in Technicolor._


End file.
